Introduction:

Human metapneumovirus (hMPV) with tropism for the respiratory tract epithelium, causes 5u201310% of all acute respiratory tract infections (ARI). Patients may be asymptomatic, or exhibit mild upper respiratory tract symptoms or severe bronchiolitis and pneumonia. Determinative diagnostic markers for infection are not well elucidated. This study on nasal immune responses to hMPV aims to understand the mucosal immune responses to hMPV and its implication in disease resolution and pathology.

Materials and Methods:

A Hospital cross-sectional study design with 196 participants was adopted. Two nasal swabs for viral screening and quantification by RT-PCR and the second for quantification of the cytokines were obtained. Analysis was done using STATA version 13. The test for association between categorical variables was done using Pearsonu2019s Chi Square test while the test for association between categorical and continuous variables was done using ANOVA test.

Results:

hMPV prevalence was 4% with mean hMPV cycle threshold value of 28.34. The entire sample of participants positive for hMPV had median cytokine levels: IL-2, 57.11 (IQR: 34.49u201370u201349), IL-4, 30.49 (IQR: 8.07u201360.84), IL-8, 396.61 (IQR: 81.91u2013530.71), IL-10, 26.98 (IQR: 7.55u201342.65), and IL-12-p70, 44.93 (IQR: 23.59u201370.38).
There was a positive association between cytokines; IL-10 and IL-12p70 p=0.0005, IL-2 and IL-10 p=0.007, IL-2 and IL-12p70 p=0.015.

Conclusions:

hMPV is not an important ARI etiological factor in infants, its infection induces cytokines with a Th2 bias.

Keywords: